Month: January 2020

After our final night on the ship, it was time to say goodbye to Antarctica and our friends. This being Antarctica, things were subject to change, and they did. After clearing out of our cabins, we spent most of the morning waiting to hear when we’d get a weather slot for our planes to come down and pick us up. The ship was anchored outside of Frei station on King George island ready to go, but we stayed on the ship until we got word that the planes had taken off. This wound up happening just after the hotel crew threw together an impromptu lunch, which looked like repurposed leftovers (sweet and sour turkey for instance, great idea), and they did a fine job.

Then we were off to shore for some more waiting. We walked roughly a mile back from the shore to the plane parking area and it started raining. Unfortunately we had to wait about an hour in the rain in the middle because of plane traffic so we couldn’t cross the runway. Luckily we all had our gear on so it wasn’t bad.

Once we made it back to Punta Arenas, and got ourselves settled and desperately used to internet to catch up, we had a really fantastic dinner at a French restaurant with some friends from the boat.

Finally the next day we were off to Santiago again to stay the night at the airport hotel. It was surprisingly nice, we spent most of the time at the bar going through photos and writing blog posts and enjoying being able to use the interwebs again. We also ran into another friend from the ship and chatted with her for a while.

The next morning it was off to Easter island (Rapa Nui.) Being at the airport hotel must have made us overconfident, because we started off running late and missed the window to check our bags. Luckily we had stashed one bag at the hotel and our other bags worked as carry-on in a pinch. We did have to race through the airport, and immigration for some reason, despite not leaving the country, carrying all of our bags, but we made it, with me swearing “never again.”

On the 26th, we woke up early to see us transit Neptune’s Bellows which is the entrance to Deception island. The fantastic naming aside, almost no one got outside to see it because most folks had been up late with trivia the previous night. It was also cold and windy and the seas we’re pretty rough the previous night. I made it out for a few minutes, but managed to miss the transit through the bellows. Deception island is actually one of three volcano calderas in the world that you can sail into. The volcano had a massive eruption and collapsed in on itself which let the sea into the caldera. It was a neat place surrounded by the rim of the volcano nearly all around and beaches filled with relics from an old whaling station.

We took the zodiacs out to land on the beach and explored the ruins. Unlike all the previous sites, this one did not have much wildlife. There were a couple of penguins by the landing site, but that was pretty much it. The whaling station had been abandoned and partially destroyed by a couple of small eruptions over the last 50 years. It was a bleak site, but it felt appropriate, especially with the driving hail and freezing temperatures. We felt like the early explorers trudging through the snow on our way back to our cruise ship with hot chocolate and a shower waiting for us.

Afterwards instead of cruising around in the zodiacs, since the weather was still marginal they gave us a presentation on the geology and history of Deception island. Unfortunately after we left the natural harbor of the island the seas were still pretty rough. I started getting a little seasick so I went to have a nap. Pretty much the rest of the boat did as well, and due to the weather and seas they wound up cancelling our next landing at Half Moon island. I was ok with it, a nap was very welcome.

We finished off the day with a fantastic farewell dinner with some of our friends on the ship. The chef went all out with an explosion of chocolate desserts all beautifully made and delicious. I had been trying to meet up with one of the guides, Marla the biologist, all day to show her my pictures of the crab eater seal eating a fish, and finally managed to do so after dessert. She was extremely excited to see them and I gave her copies to use in her presentations. A bunch of the other guides gathered around to check them out as well. It’s great how much they’re all truly into this stuff.

This was a long long day, hence a very long entry.

Luckily Santa didn’t pelt us with presents in the night seeing as we had no roof but did leave one on the ship! We woke up to a clear morning and the beautiful views of the sea and glacier. We made our way back to the ship and had a relaxed morning with a delicious breakfast. We then took a Zodiac to Useful Island and hiked up to the top through Chinstrap and Gentoo colonies. At the top we were greeted with a glorious 360 degree view that gave the island its’ name. From there whalers would spot whales to hunt. On the hike up we got my one plant, moss, and I was way too excited about it, not having seen green in awhile. There were also some neon orange lichens which I also loved. After watching penguin antics for awhile we went down to the beach to observe a hauled out seal napping in the snow. After that we took a Zodiac cruise and went to see some amazing icebergs, huge sculptural hunks of ice deceptively small looking because of our lack of scale. It was a cold and windy ride out there and back but we forgot about that when someone spotted a seal in the water. And it had a fish! The seal had a half meter long fish and was thrashing it from side to side on the top of the water. They do this because it’s the only way to break open the fish without hands. The seal kept thrashing, getting more and more fish exposed and gulping it down. The storm petrels arrived, circling the seal and and grabbing bits that fell off. A Skua then came in to try to get some directly from the Seal but was unsuccessful. It was, I don’t know, I’ve run out of superlatives for this trip, amazing/spectacular/wonderful/incredible. I have video and Matt has amazing shots but bad internet will probably keep us from uploading it and all our other amazing stuff till we get home.

Neko Harbor is home to a giant calving glacier and a Gentoo penguin colony. We visited it in the afternoon and landed on a steep sloped hill covered in penguins. We hiked around the penguins toward the glacier and got to see penguin highways where the penguins have tramped down the in snow and made lots of little paths for themselves. It was super cute. While loitering there watching penguin antics a giant ice berg calved off the glacier creating a thunderous crack. It plunged into the sea, spinning and shedding as it tried to find equilibrium, creating a large wave that knocked the a zodiac off the beach. It was magnificent. The penguins didn’t notice in the slightest. We stayed there watching the process happen again and again in awe.

After we went on a zodiac cruise and observed a lot of seals and whales. Our guide got us right in the path of a logging humpback and we were rewarded with it coming up right next to the boat, surprising all of us.

“You’re as cold as ice, you’re willing to sacrifice our love. You never take advice, someday you’ll pay the price I know…”. So began my polar plunge experience. The expedition leader piped that through the intercoms and it was time to get ready for Antarctica’s icy touch. Dashed to the room, threw on a bathing suit and robe, pleaded one last time, unsuccessfully, for Matt to do it with me, and met up in the hallway with our friends Emma, Lisa, and Mathieu. After an agonizing wait filled with trepidation, it was time. Walk down the metal later, harnessed to the boat, across a zodiac, deep breath, plunge. For me it was more of a walking off the plank to my doom. Liz had told me controlling your breathing is key. You won’t get hypothermia for up to 10 minutes so don’t worry about that. I sunk deep into that turquoise water, the only thought, WTF have I done?!?!?! Find air, try and fail to control my breathing, climb out with numb feet, wave to all the passengers watching and cheering, scramble back up to the ship. Then the shock started wearing off, grabbed my patch and 2 shots of vodka. Then back to the room where Matt sweetly had a bourbon for me, hot shower, and done! Would I do it again? Probably. Would it be stupid? Yes.

We started that evening with a BBQ on the back deck and some mulled wine. It’s funny trying to eat dinner in a parka! Then it was quiz night. We got drinks and into teams of six and had to answer trivia questions about what we had learned in Antarctica and also about Christmas. It was a hoot, lots of yelling (Croatia was where our ship was built according to the Captain- not it’s old name Yugoslavia), laughing and fun. At one point half the room broke into”Rudolf the red nose reindeer” to jeer poor Neil the quiz master(myself included) for saying Rudolf wasn’t one of the Reindeers in Santa’s sleigh. Then we learned whom won the decorating contest, Azul got a fourth (she was robbed) and we won a silent auction for a bottle of Shackleton Whisky, made from the the recipe as the one Shackleton had on his Antarctica expeditions by MacKinlay. It was a nice Christmas present/souvenir for Matty and me to take home.